Why We Exist

The story of the Canmore Museum is really the story of Canmore itself. In 1979, when Canmore Mines ceased operations, the small close-knit community of about 1,000 hardy folks wasn’t sure how they would survive in paradise.

With the closing of the mine, the question lingered around town was, now what?

– Rob Alexander, The History of Canmore

But with 1988 Olympic Winter Games, which included many key nordic events in Canmore, the town found a way to turn the page.

Since 1988, the Canmore Museum has been welcoming residents and visitors from around the world to our unique small town museum. Our permanent exhibit, From Coal to Community, presents Canmore in a variety of perspectives: as an ancient way station for Indigenous cultures, as an integral part of the Canadian Pacific Railway’s Western expansion, as a 95-year historic coal-mining community, as an excellent venue to study and observe the geological history of the Earth, and as a modern and vibrant community that attracts artists and athletes from all over the world.

Each year over 20,000 people visit the museum, while we engage with another 5,000 young people at our summer camps and school programs. In the past year, 671 students from Banff, Canmore, Exshaw, and Calgary, attended our unique school programs. Through a new Canmore Museum & Lafarge: partners in education initiative, every single child in Grade 3 (Banff, Canmore, Exshaw) attended a new three-part experiential learning unit, entitled Minerals Rock!

The Canmore Museum is located in the heart of downtown, just inside the Canmore Civic Centre, with plenty of free parking all around us. We also manage one of Canmore’s oldest buildings, North West Mounted Police Barracks (1893) located at 609 Main Street. When you are visiting Canmore, we hope you will take a few minutes to experience both the NWMP Barracks and the Canmore Museum & Geoscience Centre!

We are open seven days a week.

Check us out canmoremuseum.com

What We Do

In a normal year we entertain over 20,000 visitors and locals visiting our two facilities and participating in our various programs. We run the Museum and the North West Mounted Police Barracks in Canmore and this is what you will discover when you visit the two venues:

Our main facility is our Museum, at the Canmore Civic Centre in the centre of Canmore. As of March 2016, our new permanent exhibition: “From Coal to Community” tells stories of both the geological and social history of the area. There are hands-on opportunities for everyone and videos provide information about the history of the Canmore area. The Museum is open seven days a week, all year long, except for a couple of days at Christmas.

The other facility is the North West Mounties Police (NWMP) Barracks, situated on the high Street in Canmore. This attractive, white-painted, log cabin style building was erected in 1893 to house a contingent of the NWMP as the area developed rapidly due to the arrival of the railway. This is a heritage building and a small exhibit in the building tells the story of the arrival of the “mounties” and the subsequent history of the people who lived in it.  This is where we tell the rest of the stories, especially of life in the early part of Canmore’s history. During winter months we rely on volunteers to run the facility which is open, on average, three days a week including the weekends. During the summer we employ students who keep the facility open seven days a week.

A third component of how we carry out our mandate is the development of education programs, particularly those to complement grade school curricula. We recently partnered with Lafarge to develop a program for grade 3 classes whereby the children visit the Museum and Lafarge’s premises at Exshaw to learn all about the rocks and minerals of our area and about making cement out of the raw material found in the valley.

In addition to permanent exhibits, we plan a series of temporary exhibits within the permanent space over time. The first of these exhibits will feature Graymont’s quarry operations (as opposed to Lafarge’s) in the Exshaw area. This exhibit is currently being developed and is scheduled to open sometime in the Spring of 2017.

We have a board of directors, comprised of twelve people, who meet regularly once a month to work on normal board activities such as fundraising, planning, governance, etc., and who also roll up their sleeves and get involved directly in many of the programs of the Society.

Our 2017 annual budget is $457,000, funds to be provided as follows;

• $145,000     Town of Canmore grant
• $101,000     Other grants
• $121,000      Donations
• $51,000        Retail
• $39,000       Admissions and programs

This budget includes a provision for raising at least $100,000 for the Lamp House project. To learn more click here: Calgary Herald: Making Canmore Lamp House a provincial historic site.

How We Do It

Our day-to-day operations are run by two full time staff, two part time staff (totalling one full time equivalent), three or four students in the summer and about thirty dedicated volunteers.

In addition to our facilities, we offer a wide range of programs for our visitors, local population and especially schools. These programs include:

1. The very popular coal mine tours, led by local mining expert, Gerry Stephenson.
2. Other geological and historical tours.
3. Gift shop services.
4. Children’s programs in partnership with the Town of Canmore; “Big Fun Summer Camps”
5. Art in the Park where artists display their creations in the garden of the NWMP Barracks.
6. Research opportunities for individuals (writers, historians, geologists and local students).
7. Support of local organization events such as the Miners’ Day Parade, Ladies Hospital Auxiliary, etc.
8. Family programs such as Easter, Halloween and Christmas fairs, paper making workshops and a rock and fossil clinic.
9. Storage, documentation and preservation of historical and geo-scientific artifacts and information about the Canmore region.
10. Opportunities for people to volunteer in the Canmore and Calgary communities (e.g., Mount Royal University students in Calgary leading our Grassi Lakes program)
11. An educational program in support of the grade 3 rocks and minerals curriculum, developed in partnership with Lafarge. Other educational programs in support of grade 4, 6 and 7 curricula are being planned to start within the next 12 months. All grade 3 classes in the Canmore/Banff area participated in our programs in the fall of 2016.  News of the success of the program appears to have reached Calgary in that at least one school has already requested to participate in the program in the spring of 2017. Our plans are to develop similar programs to complement grades 4, 6 and 7 school curricula in the next 12 months.

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What You Can Do

We invite you to visit our Museum at the Civic Centre and the NWMP Barracks in the heart of Canmore and learn about our mountains, our coalmining heritage and our social history.

You can VOLUNTEER: Meet people from around the world, be an ambassador, and engage locals and visitors in our unique history. There are at least 3 ways to get involved – you can:

1. Provide support and assistance at our Gift Shop/Front Desk;
2. Serve as an ambassador for Canmore’s history at our NWMP Barracks; or
3. Help out at Miner’s Day celebrations, the Rock n’ Fossil Clinic and other special events.

To learn about volunteering see: http://canmoremuseum.com/volunteer/

You can BECOME A MEMBER: As a thank you to our members, we offer the following:

• Free admission to the museum
• Special invitations to open houses and exhibits
• 10% discount on all retail items in the Museum Shop

To learn about membership see: http://canmoremuseum.com/support_membership/

You can SPONSOR our Programs: We are always looking for sponsorship and donations, especially now as we look to developing our education programs and our new special project of restoring the Lamp House.

The Lamp House is on its way to becoming designated a provincial historical site. The stone building, known as the Lamp House, is the only building still standing from the Canmore mines. It is currently fenced off and sits in a field near the old No. 2 mineshaft opening.

• Our project is to rebuild this long standing icon of the coal mining era on its present site and perhaps, who knows, even open up a small part of the nearby number 2 mine.

• “We have basically the whole building there and Alberta Culture and Tourism was impressed it was all there,” according to former Canmore resident David Evans, previous director with the society’s board.   Source: Rocky Mountain Outlook – June 9, 2016: Canmore Museum focused on preservation of Lamphouse

• The historical importance of the site would also support it functioning as an interactive exhibit for the museum. Evans said his hope is to see a miner’s park with displays that show what the area used to look like with a coal mine operating.

While fundraising efforts have not officially gotten off the ground, Evans said a few “really good benefactors” have pledged around $65,000. Current estimates to restore the building are around $150,000 he added. (June 9, 2016 – Rocky Mountain Outlook)

Please go to https://www.canadahelps.org/dn/4984 to make your donation or contact the museum at 403-678-2462.